A JOURNEY TO DEVOPS IN THE BRITISH ARMYLessons Learnt for Successful Automation

Aidan BeesonLinux Architect (Contractor)May 2018

https://www.flickr.com/photos/uk-forces-afghanistan

The plan…

Information Application Services (IAS)

Military Civil Servants IT Contractors

200+ Services

Public

OfficialSensitive

Secret

3 SecurityDomains

Army, Navy& Air Force

100+ Staff

Training Recruits Families Injured

Regular Reserves Veterans

~10

~300,000

Public Cloud Official SensitivePrivate Cloud

SecretPrivate Cloud

Army Hosting Environments

Operating Systems:

Development:

Virtualization:

ERP

HR

Logistics

CRM

LegalPlanning

Geo Mapping

Data Warehouse

Training

Analytics

Hosting Environment

AccountingSecureComms

MY JOURNEY TO “DEVOPS”

Year 2000 – “UNICOM” Project

UNICOM Server

Lovely Screen

All Mod-Cons

Very Beige

Typical UNICOM System Administrator

• Soldier in the Army

• Not necessarily technical

• Part time Sys-Admin

“Heather”

You also have to deal with situations with an “Army” twist to them.

Tip #1:

KEEP IT SIMPLE(for the end user)

Complexity + Stress = Misunderstandings

Year 2015 – Army HQ DevOps

Automation Framework

• OS Patching• Platform Installs• Oracle Patching• Oracle Upgrades

IAS ‘DEVOPS’ EXPECTATIONSEmpowering users (developers and operations)

Reducing the lead time to get platforms up and running

Removing the dependency on lots of different people to build a platform

Enabling consistency across domains

Reducing system downtime

Simplifying processes and, therefore, documentation

Tip #2:

LEGACY CAN BE “DEVOPS’d”(Don’t throw away existing code or platforms)

THE DEVOPS PLANTOP SECRET

TOP SECRET

Users interact with Ansible.

Ansible layer interacts with existing scripts and extended to fully automate jobs.

DevOps Utopia!

Started with “pure” Ansible

Quickly decided we needed a GUI

Tip #3:

USE ANSIBLE TOWER FROM THE START(If you think you’ll need a GUI)

https://www.ansible.com/products/tower https://github.com/ansible/awx

Supported by Red Hat

Open Source!

CloudForms (or “ManageIQ” for Open Source version)

Operations

Documentation

Installation Media

Config Files

Installation ScriptsCore Services

Operations

Service CatalogueDev / Test

KEY COMPONENTS

SCM – Playbook Code

Hypervisor – VM Control

Artefact Server – Software ISOs

Password Management

MatterMost – Job Status Info

Service Catalogue – Virtual Hardware provisioning

Tip #4:

ANSIBLE TOWERCLI(Because we love the command line)

Our Ansible Tower installation and configuration is

…Software Installation, Projects, Inventories, Job Templates, Access Controls, Surveys, Credentials…

100%Software Defined

Tip #5:

TOWER JOB SURVEYS(Keeping It Simple)

JOB SURVEYS

Drop downs or Pick Lists limit what users can select

User promotes a releaseusing a Tower job.

Playbook scans theartefact server for

changes

Survey is regeneratedwith new options againstall relevant job templates

AUTOMATIC SURVEY REFRESH

MISSION DEBRIEF

KEY TAKE-AWAYS

Keep It Simple

Recycle existing automation code

Decide early on if you need a GUI

Automate GUI configuration

Give users the power, but retain control

ACHIEVEMENTS

Development, Test, Pre-Production and Production all aligned

All major new Linux based software deployed using Tower

Zero patch related downtime during working hours

Documentation complexity reduced

Happy Users!

I’m seriously impressed at how quickly and smoothly you guys are able to get the Oracle CPUs rolled

out across all the environmentsIAS Lead DBA

“

”

‘Legacy’ no longer refers to the platform itself, but the way you

deliver and maintain the platform

“”

https://www.ansible.com/videos-ansiblefest-london-2017

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